Clica una miniatura per anar a Google Books.
S'està carregant… The Perfectionistsde Gail Godwin
Cap S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
"Real artistry . . . A finely crafted and absorbing novel."--Los Angeles TimesDane is an American magazine journalist, and John, a British psychotherapist. He says he knows everything about her, how she thinks, what she wants from life. Under the force of his certainty, Dane marries John and takes up the care of his silent three-year-old son, Robin. They go on vacation to Majorca to try to become a family, but ten months into their marriage Dane finds herself growing more and more distant from John, impatient with his endless analysis of their relationship, and repulsed by his clumsy attempts at understanding. As ever, Robin's silence hangs constantly between them, a symbol of pure anger and hate. As the two weeks stretch on forever, Dane grows closer to a decision she can't quite make, and Robin sits silently in the middle, a reminder to her of all she cannot control.... Praise for The Perfectionists "This is so skillfully in the classical tradition, and at the same time so accurate on the old Adam and Eve battle. I thought the British psychiatrist an only too convincing male monster."--John Fowles"Tense, tight . . . complete with highly dramatic scenes, in an unembarrassed, uncluttered manner."--The St. Louis Post-Dispatch"Original in its situation, astute in its insight, and quite impeccably styled."--Kirkus Reviews No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Debats actualsCapCobertes populars
Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
Ets tu?Fes-te Autor del LibraryThing. |
Dane and John were not alone on this vacation. They were accompanied by John's young son Robin, a child who had never spoken to Dane. Along with Robin was Penelope, a patient from John's psychotherapy practice, there to look after Robin.
Gail Godwin is a writer I hadn't heard of before LT, but she is highly regarded here and as I discovered, for good reason. This first novel gave rise to many conflicting thoughts. Godwin seems to write with a scalpel, at times with the intensity of Doris Lessing. The subject matter was good. It was the characters that distressed me. Not for the good reasons that make you think about a book no matter how unpleasant, but rather for their sheer idiocy. What therapist takes a patient on vacation? Lots of alarm bells there. What really frustrated me though was Dane, a happy bright woman living in a cheerful Cheyne Walk flat, starting a promising career, who suddenly immersed herself in the world of that awful brown paint in London bedsits and cheap hotels with a man she finds brilliant, but whose "...daily dealings with life were so much smaller than the panoramic sweep of his mind; his actions were never quite worthy of the clean, heroic beauty of his best ideas."
It was the ideas Dane had fallen in love with and now she was living with the actual man with his "flesh and blood failings". A true case of marry in haste, repent at leisure? I found myself willing Dane to just abandon the whole enterprise; to leave and pick up her old life. "It's not too late" I would tell her repeatedly, hoping all the while she would listen. Whether she did or not would fall into spoiler territory.
This is a book very much of its time, 1970,when careful analysis of relationships was everywhere, but the ideas behind it are still out there and always will be. People continue to seek the perfect mate as well as perfection in that mate. I'll read more Gail Godwin and hope for different characters.